Happy holidays!

The holidays are nearly here and December can be a pretty stressful time for small business owners, so here are 24 quick admin tips to help you get organised in the run up to the end of the year

24 quick admin tips to help you stay on top

Planning/Mindset

1. Holiday closure times

Decide no later than the first week of December if you plan to close your business over Christmas and the New Year period and communicate your closure times to your clients. That will allow you to get proper downtime if your customers’ expectations are well managed.

2. Manage your own expectations

At this time of year, your life admin increases – Christmas to plan, presents to buy and wrap, friends to visit and so on. You are only human and you probably can’t do it all, and that’s OK.

3. Get clear on your priorities in December

When you have additional tasks on your plate, it’s more important than ever to prioritise. Push back anything that can wait until January to free up time in December.

4. Try time-blocking your calendar

Admin tasks can take ages if you let them; equally they can drop off the list altogether until it becomes a crisis – think Self-Assessment Tax Return! To prevent this from happening, carve out time in your calendar every day to tackle your emails, bookkeeping and other repetitive tasks so that it doesn’t pile up and threaten to engulf you.

5. Chunk your work

If you have a lot of data entry to do, such as adding info to your CRM, creating invoices or adding expenses to your finance system, chunk the work into manageable pieces and spread it over a few sessions. It will feel much more achievable like this. You can even reward yourself when you get to the end of each batch.

6. Don’t multi-task

Finish one job before you move onto the next, otherwise your brain is having to constantly juggle – that’s draining and takes you more time in the long run.

7. Learn how to say no.

Sometimes you can’t do it all. December is often one of those times. Saying no to a client or colleague is sometimes necessary.

Daily tasks

8. Start with something simple

When your task list is very long, it can be overwhelming which can result in inaction. Choose a simple job to get you started each day – that will keep the procrastination at bay.

9. Set alerts and alarms

If you are easily distracted, you may find yourself turning up for virtual meetings later. Set an alarm to remind you 15 minutes before your meeting or important task so that you can arrive ready and not flustered.

10. Emails

Don’t read your emails until lunchtime. You will find this keeps you much more focused on the most important tasks for your day whilst your brain is fresh. If this is too long to wait make a promise to only look at them once before then, preferably first thing in the morning!

11. Manage your finances frequently

Each day take 10 minutes to reconcile your bank account and to cast an eye over any outstanding invoices. Set up your invoicing software to automatically send out reminders to clients who have unpaid bills. If you are manually creating invoices in Word or Google Docs, consider moving to online accounting software which can save you hours of admin time per month.

Weekly tasks

12. Paying suppliers

Keeping on top of your finances is not just about chasing your unpaid invoices. Set aside some time each week to process your supplier invoices so you don’t become a bad debtor to someone else.

13. Invoicing

If you have customers that you bill each month, you can set up recurring invoices that your accounting software can send out automatically on the same day each month. You can also set up a direct debit scheme with the customer to make it much easier for them to pay you.

14. Planning time

Set aside an hour each week to plan for the week ahead. Think about what you need to do for your clients and what you would like to do for your own business. Then allocate a portion of the time to working on your business to move you closer to your goals.

15. Think about meetings

Do you really need to be at all the meetings you attend? Perhaps you can shorten meetings and still achieve the outcomes you need.

16. Networking

Joining a networking group can help you to grow your business with the support of other small business owners. If you find a weekly meeting too frequent, there are many monthly groups that can also support you.

Monthly tasks

17. Run your monthly finance reports

If you aren’t on top of your business figures, it’s going to be very hard to grow. Understanding your cash position as well as how your sales, expenses and profit numbers are moving is vital to enable you to make good decisions that move you forward. If you aren’t sure how to run reports from your accounting software, speak to a tech-savvy VA.

18. Track your business leads

When you run your own business, you need to know where your clients are coming from. Each month review your new leads and identify which marketing activity is providing the best return on your time and money.

19. Communicate with your customers

Once a month, take time to contact recent customers to ask them for feedback about your services. Make it easy for them to respond by giving them a template, online survey or simply asking them a couple of questions.

20. Stock take

If you run a product-based business, there can be significant some of money tied up in stock. Do a monthly stock take so you can see what’s selling well and where you might need to change your approach.

Prepare for the new year

21. Tax return admin

If you haven’t already sorted out your tax return, it’s a good idea to make a start on it this side of Christmas because it will be the end of January before you know it. Start with sorting out all your expense receipts so you can evidence all your business costs.

22. Keep control over costs

Take time to look at your business costs and research better options. If there are monthly subscriptions that you aren’t using much or at all, cancel these so you can make savings.

23. Consider scheduling

Save time in the New Year on your social media by batch writing your content and scheduling it to be posted automatically.

24. Delegate tasks to your virtual assistant.

When your business admin feels relentless, it’s time to consider getting in some help. You may not be able to hire a full, or even part-time member of staff, but you could instead buy a package of admin hours from a Virtual Assistant. You can delegate tasks that you find time-consuming or tricky to others who know what they are doing and can complete it to a higher standard more quickly than you can.

If you’ve found this list of quick admin tips useful, why not check out my 26 Productivity Tips and Tricks to help you achieve more.

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